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Published: August 30th 2005
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The children of Moynaq
Part of a collage at the museum. Picking up the pieces from last night we're quite happy to return to Nukus. We load up the car but before leaving we head downtown to the local Aral Sea museum, since the caretakers have opened it especially for us. It is a small hall with various regional memorabilia, paintings of fishermen, models of fishing vessels made by school children, photographs from the old canning factories, stuffed animals from the region and so on.
Paging through a binder with old photographs I suddenly come across a photograph that captures my interest. It depicts some ships and a special tractor with a crane that I recognize from one of the photos I originally found on the Internet months ago. On this photo the tractor can be seen with around ten grounded vessel in the desert and I get my hopes up for finally being able to find these ships, having enquired about them with various people on this trip. The caretakers and the local Fund representatives study the photo and confirm that it was indeed taken very close to Moynaq, but before I can get excited they explain to me that these ships have since been completely dismantled. So, mystery solved,
but the conclusion was not appealing. We climb back into the UAZ and head for Nukus.
The journey on paved way feels smooth as silk, and nothing extraordinary happens on the way. We stop shortly to refuel in Chimbai but turn down an offer to sit down for some tea and press on, reaching Nukus in time for lunch. We once again install ourselves at the Hotel Nukus and have lunch at the restaurant. We go back out in the hot afternoon sun to run some errands and also catch one of the local attractions, a Lenin statue over at the junkyard. I find the weary old MAZ trucks more photogenic. We are fresh out of CYM and drop by the Uzbekistan Airways Aviakassa to exchange some dollars, but the exchange office is out of CYM. The same message was given at the hotel exchange office (one wonders what purpose it serves) and since the bank is closed today we will have to wait to buy our return tickets until tomorrow morning.
We send Rustam off for the rest of the afternoon and we can take some very much longed for showers and generally rest a bit in
the afternoon. We go out for dinner in the evening, aiming for what is locally known as
Broadway, one of the major streets where a number of cafés and eateries are located. The main food court is covered in darkness and we dodge it in favour of a totally uninspiring restaurant serving snacks, fast food and ice cream. We have some hot dogs and a hamburger and the ubiquitous Tip Top juice and jasmine tea. Back at the hotel we continue digging into the mysteries of Russian television, including singing panties on Russian MTV as well as old silent movies about impossible love in the Aral Sea, which of course is extremely amusing.
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